


A Nice Fantasy

by protego



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Asexual Oswald Cobblepot, Asexuality, Asexuality Spectrum, Bullying, Childhood, Minor Oswald Cobblepot/Edward Nygma, Parent-Child Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-08
Updated: 2017-07-08
Packaged: 2018-11-29 14:31:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11442837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/protego/pseuds/protego
Summary: "The other boys at school call him a 'fag' and a 'homo'. Oswald didn’t know what those words meant before, but he is more than familiar with them now."Snapshots from Oswald's childhood.





	A Nice Fantasy

At first, Oswald thinks it’s his name. When the teacher says it, she wrinkles her nose. He never thought his name sounded silly before, but it does now. Oswald Cobblepot. It sounds like a joke. Like a made-up name. His mother always told him to be proud of his heritage, that he’s the first in his family to have an anglicised surname. _Kapelput_ became _Cobblepot_ and he’s always been proud of it.

But when one of the boys barges past him in the hallway, and says  _watch where you’re going, Cobblepot_ , his name sounds ridiculous. He wishes he was called something else.

And then he thinks it’s his hair, because Mother makes him flatten it against his head and the other boys wear it messy. So he goes into the boy's toilets and get his hair wet and makes it spike up and tries to give himself a fringe like the other boys. It doesn’t look like theirs. It’s too crested and his fringe hangs limply over his forehead. But he likes it.

Someone comes in and sees and they don’t even need to say anything. They just laugh.

And then he thinks it’s his lexis. Mother always told him to enunciate, to speak with received pronunciation, to use long words, so people know he’s educated. She had told him, on one of the rare occasions when she’d spoken of his father, that he was very well spoken.

Evidently, however, the other students think he’s showing off, because when someone punches him in the stomach in the playground, they tell him so.

And then, slowly, day by day, week by week, Oswald realises that it’s not his name or his hair or his mannerisms. It is simply something about him, something innately alien and wrong about him, which they find repulsive. They see something in him which Mother insists is not there. He’s special, she says. He’s wonderful.

As much as he tells himself that she’s correct, that the imbeciles at school simply cannot recognise him for what he truly is, when he’s lying on the playground on his side, clutching his abdomen, winded from the punch or kick, he wonders if they’re right. Maybe Mother is wrong.

* * *

One night, at one o’clock in the morning, Oswald walks into the kitchen and Mother is making pancakes. She woke him up with the noise – clattering pots and pans and singing a German lullaby – and he walks into the kitchen rubbing his eyes sleepily.

“Mother?” he asks, blinking blearily at her.

“Ah, there you are  _mein leibschen_ ,” she says brightly. He doesn’t like it when she smiles like that. Her eyes are very wide, and she’s looking at him like she’s not really seeing him, and her hair is coming out of its bun. Strands of it are floating around her head like starved snakes. She looks like a wicked witch from a storybook.

Oswald stays in the doorway, watching her. “What are you doing?” he asks, quietly. She starts cracking eggs into a bowl, and her bangles rattle on her scrawny arms.

“You are so thin, my little Cobblepot,” she says, and then she tuts. “So thin. You should really eat something.”

Because he doesn’t know what to do, Oswald sits down at the kitchen table. His legs swing because he’s not big enough for his feet to touch the floor. It’s very cold in the kitchen. He wishes he’d worn his dressing gown – the thick one which is too big for him, but Mother says it makes him look like a king, wearing a robe.

“Mother, I’m not hungry,” he says. She doesn’t stop cracking eggs. Three. Four. Then she stops and walks over to the fridge and pours milk into the bowl. She’s humming under her breath, and Oswald stares at her.

He’s always known she was different. She’s not like other children’s Mothers. But it doesn’t matter – she loves him, and he loves her. They’re all each other has in the whole wide world, and Oswald wouldn’t ever tell anyone that sometimes he’s scared.

Sometimes, when her eyes go glassy and dim, or when she cooks him too much food and doesn’t let him leave the table until he’s finished all of it, or when she gets angry because he takes too long to come home from school and she says that she thinks  _the bad men_  took him away. Oswald is always on the lookout for bad men who want to take him away because he’s special.

“Come, come,” Mother says. Oswald blinks. On the stove, the frying pan is full of pancake mixture, and there’s too much of it.

She slides the pancake onto his plate and Oswald looks down at it. “I’m tired, Mother,” he says, because it’s true. His eyes are itchy and his brain feels fuzzy. “I have to go to school tomorrow.”

“Oh  _no_! No school tomorrow,” Mother says, sitting down beside him. She begins cutting the pancake, and stabs a piece with the fork, and holds it out to him, like he’s a baby, even though he’s eight now, and feels very grown up. “No school. You stay here, where the bullies can’t hurt you.”

Oswald opens his mouth because it’s easier than arguing and lets her feed him, and she smiles. The brightness in her eyes has dimmed now, and she looks at him so lovingly that Oswald feels guilty. She loves him. He’s a bad son. He doesn’t mind missing school, because he hates it there. And if he stays at home, he and Mother can play games and read and watch TV and make food. It’ll be fun.

“Okay Mother,” he says, swallowing thickly. “I’ll stay with you.”

* * *

The other boys at school call him a "fag" and a "homo". Oswald didn’t know what those words meant before, but he is more than familiar with them now.

And, sometimes, he wonders if they’re apt words to describe himself. He’s never felt  _that_  way about anyone before, neither girls or boys. What does that make him? What if he’s just… nothing? Is that possible? What if he’s never attracted to anyone? Does that make him even more of a freak than they all think?

He makes a conceited effort to not meet anyone’s gaze when they change for Gym, lest they think he’s having nefarious thoughts. And he’s extremely careful not to touch any of the boys while they play sports, and when they walk near him in the hall, in case they assume he wants to touch them.

The other boys have girlfriends, and they’d had their first kisses long ago, but Oswald has never even wanted to do that. Even the thought is repulsive to him. But, if he  _were_  gay, as they accuse him of being, wouldn’t he want to do that with boys?

Perhaps he will never feel  _that_  way about anyone. Perhaps he will never be anything.

* * *

Ever since he can remember, Oswald has been impressed with Don Falcone. Of course, every child in Gotham knows who Carmine Falcone is. Everyone’s heard stories of what his crime family does to people who cross him or his gang. There are even boys in Oswald’s class who boast that their siblings work for him. Some of them are lying, but others aren’t.

News regarding the Falcone crime family is all anyone at school talks about. The G.C.P.D. never make any arrests, even though everyone knows what the gang are doing. Oswald realises, very quickly, that the police force is unscrupulous. There’s a rotting justice system at the heart of the city, and it beats a steady pulse of crime and corruption. Crime is the lifeblood of Gotham.

Oswald daydreams that, one day, he’ll work for Falcone. When an idiot shoves him in the hallway, or calls him a name, Oswald imagines holding a machine gun and mowing them down.  _Pow, pow, pow_. If he were a criminal, if he worked for Falcone, he wouldn’t take anyone’s insults. He’d show them who they were messing with.

And, when he feels the fury boiling over, when he’s so close to fighting back and just attacking one of his bullies, he quells his anger by imagining that he’s the King of Gotham, the leader of his own gang, with people doing his bidding.

It’s a nice fantasy.

Some boys boast that they’re going to follow their siblings into the business, but Oswald knows they’re lying. He can tell. None of them have the stomach, or else they’re just saying it to sound impressive.

But, in actuality, he knows that only  _he_  has what it takes. Only he is willing to watch, and wait, and start at the bottom, and work his way up. He has no grand delusions about entering the ranks of a mob’s gang. He knows how it’ll work.

And he knows that, to reach the top, one must be patient.

* * *

Mother always gets sad on this particular day. It took Oswald a few years to notice, but now he’s old enough to, and he doesn’t know what to do about it. She’s sitting on her chair – the one which looks like a little throne – and staring at a photograph of a man whom Oswald doesn’t recognise. He knows, however, that it is his father.

He doesn’t know very much about his father, save for the fact that he died when Oswald was a baby. Mother very rarely speaks of him. Oswald doesn’t even know his name.

Wanting to comfort her, but not knowing how, Oswald hovers in the doorway of the living room. He hates it when she’s like this. She’s not crying, but her eyes are watery and her mouth is a thin line. She hasn’t put any make-up on, and it makes her whole face look thinner. It makes her look older.

“Oswald,” she says, sniffing and glancing up at him. She raises her thin arms and gestures to him to come over.

He shuffles to her side and allows her to pull him onto her lap. Mother strokes the glass of the frame and then sighs softly to herself.

“Life only gives you one true love, my little Cobblepot,” she says. Oswald can tell that this is important – that he must listen very carefully to what she’s saying – so he sits up a little straighter and frowns, trying to concentrate.

“Only one?” he asks. “That’s not very fair.”

“No,” Mother says, looking away from the photo and into his eyes, intensely. He always feels funny when she looks at him, like she’s looking right through him. As if he is all she can see. But it’s a good sort of feeling, he’s decided. “It is not fair,” she continues. “Which is why, when you find it, run to it.”

“How will I know if it’s my true love?” he asks, quietly. It seems like a lot of pressure. Oswald has never wanted to kiss anybody, or do any of the things they say mean you’re in love with someone. He doesn’t even  _like_  anyone.

Mother smiles and cups his face in her hands, and her touch is gentle and comforting. “You will just know, Oswald.”

He frowns a little, and wants to ask again, but instead he just says, “Oh. Okay.”

She lets go of his face and pulls him close, hugging him tightly. So tightly that he can’t really breathe, but he doesn’t say anything. He wraps his arms around her shoulders and holds her, because he knows she needs him to. He wonders if anyone else will love him the way Mother loves him. Unconditionally, forever and ever, no matter what.

He doesn’t ask the other question that he wants to ask. What if his true love doesn’t feel the same way? What if it’s true love for him, but not for them?


End file.
